Automat

A woman sits alone at night in an automat cafeteria, a single cup of coffee before her, one glove still on, her downcast face lit from above while the window behind her reflects only two receding rows of ceiling lights in the black glass. Edward Hopper makes the empty night and the anonymous public space into an image of modern urban solitude. Now in Des Moines, Automat is among his most haunting works - a lone figure suspended in a pool of light, the surrounding darkness and the impersonal city pressing in with quiet, unanswerable loneliness.